


I See Your Reflection On The Shore

by Jadzibelle



Series: Prompt Fic [10]
Category: Haven (TV)
Genre: Art Gallery AU, Gen, Haven AU - Freeform, M/M, One-sided pining (kinda), Pre-Relationship, Security Guard Nathan Wuornos AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-12
Updated: 2020-01-12
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:20:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22218442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jadzibelle/pseuds/Jadzibelle
Summary: Prompt fill: Another prompt for you if you would like one: Nathan Wuornos as a security guard at the museum where Duke Crocker goes to look at the same painting every day.Nathan observes a stranger observing a painting.
Relationships: Duke Crocker/Nathan Wuornos
Series: Prompt Fic [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/376220
Comments: 9
Kudos: 17





	I See Your Reflection On The Shore

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CookieDoughMe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CookieDoughMe/gifts).



He was back again.

It was the ninth shift in a row that Nathan had seen him; he had a sneaking suspicion he’d been in on Nathan’s days off, too, but he hadn’t asked any of his fellow guards. He didn’t want to draw attention to the guy, not when he didn’t seem to be doing anything suspicious. Odd, maybe, but not suspicious.

It was just that for days now, he’d come in just after noon, and stand in front of a single painting. On the first day, he’d obviously just been visiting, had wandered the room the way most people did, pausing here and there, reading a plaque or two, and then he’d _stopped_ , come to such an abrupt halt that the person behind him had bumped into him. Nathan had noticed, because it was his job to notice people behaving oddly, and situations that could threaten the art. Nothing had come of it- a brief exchange of apologies and they’d both forgotten each other immediately- but the tall, broad-shouldered man had stayed, transfixed, for almost half an hour after that.

And then he’d been back the next day, and the next, and the next, and each time, he’d moved with purpose, going directly to the painting and just... Staring. Absorbed, _lost_ in it, and not the way the art students that came through usually were. He looked like he didn’t know why he was there, himself, and there was something... familiar, in the lost way he held himself.

He’d started to watch the painting more, himself, looking for what had so captivated the stranger. It was a simple landscape, black watercolor, dark and bold and full of suggestions of movement, and there _was_ something strangely compelling about it, but it didn’t seem to have any hidden details, anything to make it that different from the dozens of other seascapes on display. Still, it was lovely, in a bleak sort of way.

And maybe he’d just been working in the museum too long, but he couldn’t help but find something lovely about the man, and the way he looked at it- in a bleak sort of way. The man himself was striking, bold features and sharp angles and dark eyes and a restlessness full of suggestions of movement. He seemed to fit the painting, or the painting fit him. It was easy to imagine him, in his worn quilted jacket and worn workboots, broad shoulders tucked down against a cold breeze, walking along that dark shore, as natural and unremarkable as the suggestion of birds for whom the painting was named.

Maybe, Nathan thought, if the man came back again tomorrow, he’d be bold enough to ask him what he was looking for. What he was seeing, in the rough lines of the painting. He almost didn’t want to- was afraid that if he did, he’d make the man self-conscious enough to stop coming in- but he couldn’t help the curiosity. Hoped that he might at least be able to get the man’s name, to have something to call him in his head other than ‘the stranger’.

Maybe, if he was feeling _really_ bold, and the man came in near enough to when he was supposed to go on his break, he’d ask if he wanted to grab something to eat and talk about the painting. Or anything, really, anything to explain why he’d become nearly as much a fixture in Nathan’s part of the museum as the painting he watched.

_Sea Birds, by Andrew Wyeth_


End file.
